In 1995, he founded Living on the Edge as a nationally syndicated radio ministry it has since grown into an international Christian discipleship ministry. In 1990, he became the senior pastor for Santa Cruz Bible Church in Santa Cruz, California, where he led a church congregation of 1,000 that grew to over 4,000. Under his leadership, the church grew from 30 to 500 people.

In 1982, Ingram began his pastoral ministry at Country Bible Church in Kaufman, Texas, a rural community near Dallas. Ingram started to believe that God was not calling him to coach athletes, but to 'coach' people for Jesus Christ and become a pastor. While he was on tour, he caught a vision that God could use an ordinary person like him to accomplish extraordinary things. Ingram toured the Caribbean, South America, and Asia with three international basketball teams, a trip that he said to be the turning point of his life. Afterwards, he received an invitation from Sports Ambassadors to travel overseas with other college basketball players from around the nation using basketball as a vehicle for evangelism. Ingram went on to graduate from West Liberty State College in 1976.

He recalls, 'I wanted to believe, but the older I got, the less interested I became in going through the religious motions and pretending and saying things that no one lived or believed.' The intersection of faith and basketball There was absolutely no expectation that what we did on Sunday would have any impact on how we lived the rest of the week.” Īs a result, by the time Ingram was a teenager, he was disengaged from church and God. In his book Living on the Edge: Dare to Experience True Spirituality, Ingram recounts growing up in a church that did not believe in the Bible or in having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ: 'We read our prayers, we said the right things, we fulfilled our religious duty, and then we went home. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Ingram grew up in what he called 'a negative religious environment'.

A pastor for over 30 years, Chip is the author of many books, including Culture Shock, The Real Heaven, The Real God, The Invisible War, and Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships. He is the founder, teaching pastor, and chief executive officer of Living on the Edge, an international teaching and discipleship ministry. Ralph Browne ' Chip' Ingram II (born June 21, 1954) is an American Christian pastor, author, and teacher.

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